In Memoriam: The Herald Tribune

"Herald Tribune!" "Herald Tribune!" Who ever saw Jean-Luc Godard's cult movie "A bout de souffle", will remember the blonde Jean Seberg selling the (then) New York Herald Tribune on the Champs-Elysées. Later, The Herald Tribune became the International Herald Tribune. And now, incorporated in the New York Times, it becomes the International New York Times. As Arthur Ochs Sulzberger's grandson (also an Arthur Ochs Sulzberger) writes, "Today, our future is global." You bet. Yet, in a way, it means that The Herald Tribune disappears altogether. So, I'll shout it once more. "Herald Tribune! Herald Tribune!"

And no, "A bout de souffle", half a century later, doesn't appear as good as it was. Or as we once thought it was. Although it's still worth seeing Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo - and hearing the latter say, while driving a probably stolen car on one of France's typical rural roads, "Ah, c'est beau, la France..."

Whenever I drive on one of these roads, I see Belmondo, elbow on the window, cigar between his lips, and I repeat: "Ah, c'est beau, la France..."

Syriana

This morning, I read this report in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/world/middleeast/grisly-killings-in-syrian-towns-dim-hopes-for-peace-talks.html?smid=pl-share

An Atrocity in Syria, With No Victim Too Small

A massacre that revealed new depths of depravity and routine video footage showing lurid violence have made the prospect of stitching the country back together appear increasingly difficult.

I could hardly bear it. Excellent reporting, by the way, but hard to read, let alone to view the pictures. How can people be so cruel, so inhuman, so abject? I kept thinking of all those kind people I met in Syria, some three years ago. Only three years. I keep wondering how they are, don't dare to contact them, for fear of putting them into (more) danger - especially as some of them are Christians. We didn't visit the province of Tartus, but we were relatively close - and of course, we did spend some time in Aleppo.

Reports like this make me despair of mankind - make me despair altogether: will there ever be a way out for Syria? For the Middle-East? Will this country - once the cradle of our civilisation - ever arise from  its ashes?